Pastor Troy Brewer posted a vid titled Goliath was a Nephilim.
Having familiarized myself with over two millennia worth of relevant data—that I used to write my dozen, or so, Nephilology books—I can tell you that he made a claim that is unique to all of human history.
He asserted that when Goliath is referred to what English Bibles have a, “champion” the term is actually identifying him as being, “half-man” since that’s what the Hebrew word means.
Thus, “Goliath was a Nephilim”—which should read, “Goliath was a Nephil” since the, “im” ending makes a Hebrew word male plural—which creates monumental logical, bio-logical, and theo-logical problems.
Here is the relevant text:
…there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span…
As he talked with them, behold, the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, came up out of the ranks of the Philistines and spoke the same words as before. And David heard him…
Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled.
Now, what is it about these words that inform us that he was a half-man—and half-Angel by Nephilimic implication?
Nothing at all.
Such is why Pastor Troy Brewer appeals to (a mere assertion) of a Hebrew word.
Yet, some will assert that since Goliath was a, “giant” then that alone is enough to identify him as a Nephil.
But there are two huge problems with that:
1) The one and only reason to assume that Nephilim were even taller than the subjective average is one single sentence from an, “evil report” by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked (Num 13:32-33). Since their say so it the only physical description we have of Nephilim then we’ve no reliable physical description of them and so their height is a non-issue—that alone debunks 100% of pop-Nephilology.
2) The Masoretic text has him at just shy of 10 ft. Yet, the earlier LXX and the earlier Dead Sea Scrolls and the earlier Flavius Josephus all have him at just shy of 7 ft. (compared to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days) so that’s the preponderance of the earliest data.
So, his height is a non-issue—except that he was noticeably taller than the subject average.
Yet, the issue is that he was a, “champion.”
Now, since I wrote the book on the relevant linguistics—Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010—I know that there’s not a single source anywhere that backs Pastor Troy Brewer’s assertion.
The Hebrew word in question is actually interesting in that it’s a hapax legomena (a word that only appear once in a text/book) which makes it nice and mysterious—right?
The word is bēnayim (בֵּנַיִם), the dual of bayin (בַּיִן) and refers to being between, among, in the midst of, from between, especially space between two armies.
And well, that’s exactly why it’s used of Goliath:
…came out from the camp of the Philistines…came up out of the ranks of the Philistines…
Saul and the men of Israel were gathered, and encamped in the Valley of Elah, and drew up in line of battle against the Philistines. And the Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side, with a valley between them.
Thus, Goliath was the man in the middle, literally standing in the empty space between two armies).
Nothing about him being half-man but just about him being the man halfway between the two armies.
But then, whence comes the term, “champion” to render bēnayim?
Well, I would imagine that it’s common sense: since the challenge was:
“Why have you come out to draw up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me.
If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.”
And the Philistine said, “I defy the ranks of Israel this day. Give me a man, that we may fight together.”
[all quotes are from 1 Sam 17]
You don’t send the water boy to do that, you don’t send the novice, you don’t send regular greenhorn army guy, you send your champ!
There’s also the issue of well, extreme specifics since every time Goliath is mentioned, it’s specified he’s a Repha, not a Nephil—that’s, contextually, the Hebrew word behind the English word, “giant” used of him—which, by definition, doesn’t ever even imply anything to do with height of any sort whatsoever.
Pastor Troy Brewer’s latest product is teachings about “Prophetic Teaching – Angels, Demons and Nephilim” and I’ve not much hope for it, from what I have seen here and there so there may be more reviews on his claims coming up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby.
If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help out.
Here is my donate/paypal page.
You can comment here and/or on my Twitter/X page, on my Facebook page, or any of my other social network sites all which are available here.